208 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



great care to prevent them from becoming heated and rotten 

 in consequence of having been soaked in this animal matter. 

 2 A, December 10, 1870, 425. 



THE FOOD OF THE SEA-HERRING. 



Of the various fishes thatjnhabit the ocean, none have, per- 

 haps, more direct bearing upon the prosperity of the mari- 

 time people of the North than the sea-herring, the shores of 

 both hemispheres being visited regularly by countless myri- 

 ads, that furnish an inexhaustible source of food. It is, there- 

 fore, not to be wondered at that the attention of fishermen, 

 as well as of statesmen and political economists, has been di- 

 rected to the different questions connected with the migra- 

 tion and preservation of these fish, and that much research 

 should have been expended in determining the various points 

 connected with their historv. 



Until quite recently, however, one important element of 

 their biography has been unsolved namely, the precise na- 

 ture of the food upon which they subsist, at least during the 

 time when they come into the vicinity of the shore, although 

 their varying degree of excellence throughout the year is be- 

 lieved to depend largely upon what they find to eat in the 

 different months. 



Intimately connected with this same subject of the food of 

 the herring is the fact that at times it is found almost impos- 

 sible to preserve the fish after being caught, since, notwith- 

 standing the prompt use of salt, decomposition ensues, and 

 spoils the entire catch. Indeed, at certain seasons of the 

 year, it is said that herring can not be preserved at all ex- 

 cept by taking the precaution of retaining them alive in the 

 net for a period of from three to ten days. 



A very important communication on the food of the her- 

 ring has lately been published by a Danish author, Mr. Axel 

 Boeck, from which we learn that the herring food or " meat," 

 consisting almost entirely of minute invertebrate animals, is 

 divided by the Northern fishermen into three classes the 

 "red," the "yellow," and the "black;" the names being de- 

 rived from the color of this food when living, or else from its 

 appearance when in the stomach of the fish. 



The " red meat" (rodaat) is the most common and best 

 known, and occurs along the entire const of Norway and in 



